After Arrest, U.s. Sent Ohio Man To Brazil And Death

Joao Herbert Was Deported From His Adoptive Home For A First-offense Drug Case.

May 30, 2004|By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers

CAMPINAS, Brazil -- An Ohio man deported to Brazil four years ago for a minor drug infraction was gunned down here by drug-dealing teens last week. Friends say he had sought the teens' help to smuggle guns into Brazil and use the proceeds to sneak back into the United States.

The case of Joao Herbert, 26, gained international attention in 2000, after his adoptive parents' inability to obtain citizenship papers for him, along with newly toughened immigration laws and Herbert's first-offense conviction for selling marijuana forced his deportation.

Herbert left Brazil at age 8 and grew up in Wadsworth, Ohio. As an orphan, he had no family in Brazil and spoke no Portuguese. Sending him back there would be tantamount to "a death sentence," his adoptive mother, Nancy Saunders, warned at the time.

In Brazil, Herbert settled into a small brick house in Campinas, an industrial town 60 miles north of Sao Paulo. His house is neat and treed, but it's on the edge of Sao Pedro de Viracopos, one of the city's most notorious slums. At night, drug dealers are as common as ATMs in the United States. In Campinas, a city of about 1 million, there were 192 slayings from January through March.

Herbert taught English in Campinas and even opened a school, the English University. It advertised on its billboard that an "American professor" was the teacher. Herbert moved in with one of his pupils, Paula Alexandre, 30. They had a daughter in November.

Friends with Herbert when he died Tuesday said he mostly lived by the straight and narrow. Certainly, they agreed, he never had any street smarts.

At about 250 pounds, he was both heavier and taller than his Brazilian friends. He relearned enough Portuguese to get by, but when stopped recently by police, he didn't understand the order to put up his hands. He drove a 1998 Volkswagen Gol -- flashy for the slums.

"He was a fish out of water," said Dodo Lopes, a friend.

"He never understood the ways of Brazil. Never," said Michael Miller, a Baptist missionary in Campinas.

Herbert's life came apart early this year just months after his baby daughter, Nayrah, was born. He separated from his common-law wife, closed the school and was using drugs, friends said. He also concocted a plan to sneak back into the United States and live under a new identity.

Herbert's idea was to purchase Tek-9 submachine guns in neighboring Paraguay, the source of much of the weaponry used by Brazil's notorious drug factions, and smuggle them back into Brazil.

"He said he could sell them here for 3,000 reals [about $1,000] and buy them in Paraguay for 700 reals [about $233]," said a friend who was next to Herbert as he died. Herbert planned to use the profits to cross into the United States. Jim Herbert, the deportee's adoptive father, said in an interview that he helped the young man with occasional cash and kept in touch. He expressed surprise at the scheme to escape to Canada.

"About a month ago, I had offered to fly him to Canada where he could seek sponsorship" for Canadian citizenship, Jim Herbert said. "But he said he wanted to stay in Brazil." On Tuesday, Joao Herbert and some friends prepared for a barbecue. Three teenagers from the neighboring slum knocked on his door about 1:30 p.m. local time. Friends say they warned Joao that the kids were trouble.

The youths had been driving with Herbert two weeks earlier when police stopped them, found two guns and confiscated the car. The teens now wanted Herbert to repay them for the guns' loss. He'd bought marijuana from the teens, Herbert's friends said, and intended to use them to take his weapons-buying plan to drug traffickers.

His friends stepped between Herbert and the teens, showing them the broken headlights and mirrors on Herbert's VW, which was damaged after police seized the vehicle. The friends argued that the police incident had cost Herbert more than it cost them.

Indeed, it had. Herbert, according to his adoptive father, phoned recently and said he needed $3,000 urgently.

Herbert, trying to settle matters with the teens, walked off with them. Once they'd turned the corner, shots rang out. Someone shot him four times in the head and chest. Bleeding profusely, Herbert staggered about 50 yards down Sandra Brea Street, turned right onto Joaquim Lopes Gonsalves toward his one-story home and fell face-up onto red clay with his eyes wide open.